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Phishing Attack Leads to Theft of $40,000 from School District

A PC hack enabled theft of $40,000 kept for paying employees of Denver Public Schools in direct deposit funds, it's reported. The theft, suspected to be by cyber thugs, involved the money meant for giving the staff of school district. DPS has said that the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has been engaged to investigate the cyber-crime. The investigation seeks to identify the perpetrators who infiltrated the computer's privacy and transferred cash to some unauthorized account out of the paychecks of direct deposit funds.

According to Will Jones, spokesperson for DPS, the school district does everything possible for it to create awareness among its employees regarding phishing. It also places firewalls as a best possible solution. However, the precautions couldn't do sufficiently for overcoming the widespread district assault during the week, as employees received e-mails in their accounts soliciting their usernames and passwords, Jones stated. FOX31 Denver KDVR-TV posted this, April 5, 2017.

Jones explained the e-mail message being very persuasive got 30-or-more people to read it. When a few of the staff members got ensnared with the phishing scheme, it enabled the criminals towards breaking into payroll system of the district via the separate accounts of the employees. After gaining access to DPS' network, the criminals altered the routing numbers followed with transmitting the direct deposits into an unauthorized A/C.

As per the Denver Public School district, ever-since the incident, it has paid the staff the amount they were supposed to get. According to Jones, district officials are preparing to legally claim sums from the insurance companies they're enrolled with hoping towards getting back the money lost that was originally disbursed via a minimum of fourteen direct deposits.

DPS stated that it had engaged one intermediate cyber-security company for ensuring best of the systems. DPS has had one similar situation within its district 2-yrs back, says Jones.

An internal investigation of DPS further suggests that about 162 e-mail A/Cs got the phishing message, thus prompting disabling of those accounts, they being at risk. Meanwhile, the technology services department has set to consult the individual staff members for reinstating their accounts.

» SPAMfighter News - 10-04-2017

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